Email a Friend

Superwinch Talon 12.5 SR Review

Why do you need a winch? Well, why don’t you? There are more reasons for needing one than not having one if you’re serious about off-roading trails and rock crawling. We teamed up with off-road trainer Tom Severin from Badlands Off Road Adventures in his recent search for a new recovery winch to outfit his Toyota FZJ80 Land Cruiser.

We jumped at the opportunity to see what type of winch Tom would get for his 4x4 vehicle.

THE WINCHTom was eager to get a new winch to outfit his FZJ80 Land Cruiser. When we found out Superwinch had released a new model called the Talon, he was set on getting it.

It’s no surprise he went back to a Superwinch.Tom had been running one on his Jeep ZJ for many years and was very happy with it. His last Superwinch was a hydraulic-powered winch that apparently worked very well and was extra smooth. Tom tried swapping it to his Land Cruiser, but the inline-six motor would not accommodate the extra hardware needed to run the hydraulic pump to power the winch. An electric-powered model was the best solution to getting him back on the trail.

Superwinch supplied Tom with a new Talon 12,500 lbs. winch that is perfect for his 4,000 lbs. + vehicle. Although the Land Cruiser started close to 3,500 lbs., it has been gaining weight with the newly added front and rear steel bumpers, rock sliders, rock armor and suspension. Not to mention all the extra stuff Tom hauls around in his expedition-ready rig.

THE SUPERWINCH TALON

The new Superwinch Talon is impressive by any standards. Here are some of the specs for you guys to geek out on:

THE INSTALLWe met up in Hawthorne, Calif., with Frank Gullilian at Truck & 4x4. Frank regularly works on Tom’s Cruiser and also happens to be very good at what he does. Frank has done builds for many major off-road magazines and works on all types of 4x4s, Jeeps and rock crawlers. Frank is “good people.”

We took the Superwinch Talon out of its elaborate box and fell in love. Synthetic line, sealed solenoid box, massive 12,500 lbs. power. Wow. To top it off, it came with a sexy fairlead machined out of billet, and a trick controller that is equipped with an LED light for those late night recoveries.

Frank and his crew tackled the project like pros. They had Tom’s Land Cruiser up on the lift in no time. The super-cool Slee Off-Road bumper was partially removed to slide in the Superwinch Talon, and then as it was slid back into place we ran into a problem—the solenoid box was too close to the grill.

All of us were scratching our heads trying to figure out if we got the correct model. A call to Superwinch tech support soon gave us the answer—yes, we got the right one. The SR model has the remote solenoid box, which is what we needed.

Frank Gullilian quickly used his fabrication skills to resolve the problem. He welded up a new bracket and attached it to the bumper to re-locate the solenoid controller box. This gave it plenty of space between the grill and bumper.

A few nip and tucks later, the Superwich Talon was installed and ready to rock.

Tom did the honors of doing the first real-in on his new winch. He kept the blue synthetic line collecting nicely on the drum. Tom did re-iterate that when feeding the winch line back into the winch, it’s important to keep an arm’s length for safety. The last thing you want is to run it so close that your hand gets sucked into the drum. That would be really bad.

FINAL ROLL

The installation went smooth, thanks to the help of the tenured 4x4 builder Frank Gullilian of South Bay Truck & 4x4. In our case, it did require some modification, but this winch is a drop-in/bolt-on for most winch bumpers

The Slee Off-Road bumper is tucked very close to the vehicle to prevent hang-ups, so space for a planetary winch is also very snug. We like the overall design and function of the Slee bumper, so re-locating the solenoid box to run a bumper that is designed for rock crawling and expedition is a good tradeoff.

We can’t wait to see what the Superwinch Talon can do off-road. It was time to get this beast out in the field. Tom will get back to us with some feedback on how his Superwinch Talon does, but if it does as good as his previous Superwinch, we’re in good shape.